2003-12-31 - 12:02 p.m.

I�d love to have some kind of tear-jerking review of the year presented in wonderful nostalgocolour, but I�m too busy whining about being the only person having to work on New Year�s Eve apart from, like, the Pope. Even the homeless people I pass on the way to the office have taken time off to chill and shit. Meanwhile, I�m stuck here until godknowswhen having to try and think of witty copy to accompany such quality items as, and I kid you not, a Little House on the Prairie commemorative belt buckle. I�m sure THAT will be the hot seller of the festive period. What do you do with it? Strap it on and go out to bars in the hope of picking fights with fans of The Waltons?

In any case, my mind is more on next year than the twelve months just past. It�s going to be interesting, as I dump my Little House on the Prairie-hawking safety net and go and see if I�m actually any good at the other bit of my job or not, or whether I�m just another chancing shitehawk with journalistic pretensions.

I know I�m a chancing (and possibly cockfarming) shitehawk with literary pretensions, a fact cemented by the fact that I have decided (and by broadcasting this news I am knowingly jinxing the entire enterprise, a detail that will comfort me when I fail in the most spectacular fashion) to enter Lit Idol, which gives me two weeks to write the first 10,000 words of 2004�s best selling novel, the kind of challenge that I�m going to try and put myself through on a regular basis next year, if nothing else for your continued amusement. It�s an old joke, but I am more along the lines of Lit Idle.

Busy start to the year, though � travel-tastic trips to Miami and Cape Town, and also to Paris to interview a French pop star for what I hope will be my North American journalistic debut.

However your 2004 is looking, I wish you all the very best. Take excellent care, and if you need me, I�ll be the drunk guy in the corner with the fancy belt buckle. Just don�t talk to me about The Waltons.